It's not actual gameplay. There's no HUD, no mouse cursor. But at least give Creative Assembly credit for releasing a cutscene for Total War: Rome II that's made up entirely of in-game assets, something they did to good effect in Shogun 2.

As this series evolves, I get the feeling Creative Assembly are some of the only people, alongside Firaxis, Blizzard and Relic, who understand that the key to making better strategy games isn't necessarily in messing with the fundamentals—strategy games have been on top of those for years, thanks—but their presentation.

Rome II, the first new Total War game to be released since 2011's Shogun 2, will be out on PC in October.